About my Formaldehyde...
I'll have mine with a side of nose please!

This story about skin cancer gets so crazy

Having Basal Cell on my nose was bad enough

Here comes the blade and I'm thinking just a few more minutes, I'll wake up and this nightmare will be over. The cutting starts, I feel some pressure and pulling but no pain. We're good I think, eh, wrong again! I hear the doc mutter "got it, specimen cup please" and here comes the nurse's hand floating into view right over my face holding a small clear container with some liquid in it.

Here comes the doctors hand with the tweezers holding the specimen. Again, I don't know if the stool moved or a roll tumbled, but smack, tweezers strike cup and over and out of the nurse's hand goes the cup.

You Can't Make This Up!

Instantly I feel a very cold sensation spreading down my chest, around my neck and right behind that feeling I realize that I now have a mouth full of this stuff and I can feel it going down my throat past where it was numb from all the Novocaine that ended up there. I try to spray it out of my mouth, but it's all numb and all I could do was swallow. It felt like a cold liquid fire.

It burned so bad, I was gagging and gasping for breath. Not a word was said. The doctor stitched the wound up, which thank goodness that went quickly and without incident. I asked what was in the cup that spilled, the doc said it was formaldehyde and that it had all gone on the floor. Nurse wouldn't look me in the eye, I could tell that she wasn't very proud of the preceding events. Where did the specemin go? Who knows. Stuff went on the floor, stuff went down my throat. For some reason, the biopsy was 'inconclusive'.

I left it at that and got out of there as fast as I could. Went home and called the poison control in Atlanta, they said that amount wouldn't have any effect, maybe just a touch of nausea. So no big deal, just give me my formaldehyde straight please...

The Basal Cell Carcinoma was back on my nose in five years.

overexposure to the sun